Esoteric Development

Schmidt Number: S-2412

On-line since: 28th February 2011

II

The Psychological Foundations
of Anthroposophy
Its Standpoint in Relation to the Theory of Knowledge

The task which I should
like to undertake in the following exposition is that of
discussing the scientific character and value of a spiritual trend to
which a widespread inclination would still deny the designation
“scientific.” This spiritual trend bears — in
allusion to various endeavors of its kind in the present period
— the name theosophy. In the history of philosophy, this
name has been applied to certain spiritual trends which have emerged
again and again in the course of the cultural life of humanity, with
which, however, what is to be presented here does not at all
coincide, although it bears many reminders of them. For this reason
we shall limit our consideration here to what can be described in the
course of our exposition as a special condition of the mind, and we
shall disregard opinions which may be held in reference to much of
what is customarily called theosophy. Only by adhering to this point
of view will it be possible to give precise expression to the manner
in which one may view the relationship between the spiritual trend we
have in mind and the types of conception characterizing
contemporary science and philosophy.

Let it be admitted without
reservation that, even regarding the very concept of knowledge,
it is difficult to establish a relationship between what is
customarily called theosophy and everything that seems to be firmly
established at present as constituting the idea of
“science” and “knowledge,” and which has
brought and surely will continue to bring such great benefits to
human culture. The last few centuries have led to the practice of
recognizing as “scientific” only what can be tested
readily by anyone at any time through observation, experiment, and
the elaboration of these by the human intellect. Everything that
possesses significance only within the subjective experiences of the
human mind must be excluded from the category of what is
scientifically established. Now, it will scarcely be denied that the
philosophical concept of knowledge has for a long time adjusted
itself to the scientific type of conception just described. This can
best be recognized from the investigations which have been carried
out in our time as to what can constitute a possible object of human
knowledge, and at what point this knowledge has to admit its limits.
It would be superfluous for me to support this statement by an
outline of contemporary inquiries in the field of the theory of
knowledge. I should like to emphasize only the objective aimed at in
those inquiries. In connection with them, it is presupposed that the
relationship of man to the external world affords a
determinable concept of the nature of the process of cognition,
and that this concept of knowledge provides a basis for
characterizing what lies within the reach of cognition. However
greatly the trends in theories of knowledge may diverge from one
another, if the above characterization is taken in a sufficiently
broad sense, there will be found

within it that which
characterizes a common element in the decisive philosophical
trends.

Now, the concept of
knowledge belonging to what is here called anthroposophy is such that
it apparently contradicts the concept just described. It
conceives knowledge to be something the character of which cannot be
deduced directly from the observation of the nature of the human
being and his relationship to the external world. On the basis
of established facts of the life of the mind, anthroposophy believes
itself justified in asserting that knowledge is not something
finished, complete in itself, but something fluid, capable of
evolution. It believes itself justified in pointing out that, beyond
the horizon of the normally conscious life of the mind, there is
another into which the human being can penetrate. And it is necessary
to emphasize that the life of the mind here referred to is not to be
understood as that which is at present customarily designated as the
“subconscious.” This “subconscious” may
be the object of scientific research; from the point of view of
the usual methods in research, it can be made an object of inquiry,
as are other facts of the life of nature and of the mind. But this
has nothing to do with that condition of the mind to which we are
referring, within which the human being is as completely
conscious, possesses as complete logical watchfulness over himself,
as within the limits of the ordinary consciousness. But this
condition of the mind must first be created by means of certain
exercises, certain experiences of the soul. It cannot be presupposed
as a given fact in the nature of man. This condition of mind
represents something which may be designated as a further development
of the life of the human mind without the cessation, during the
course of this further development, of self-possession and other
evidences of the mind's conscious life.

I wish to characterize this
condition of mind and then to show how what is acquired through it
may be included under the scientific concepts of knowledge belonging
to our age. My present task shall be, therefore, to describe the
method employed within this spiritual trend on the basis of a
possible development of the mind. This first part of my exposition
may be called:

A
Spiritual Scientific Mode of Approach Based upon Potential
Psychological Facts.

What is here described is
to be regarded as experiences of the mind of which one may become
aware if certain prerequisite conditions are first brought
about in the mind. The epistemological value of these experiences
shall be tested only after they have first been simply described.

What is to be undertaken
may be designated as a “mental exercise.” The
initial step consists in considering from a different point of view
contents of the mind which are ordinarily evaluated to their
worth as copies of an external item of reality. In the concepts and
ideas which the human being forms he wishes to have at first what may
be a copy, or at least a token, of something existing outside of the
concepts or ideas. The spiritual researcher, in the sense here
intended, seeks for mental contents which are similar to the concept
and ideas of ordinary life or of scientific research; but he does not
consider their cognitional value in relation to an objective entity,
but lets them exist in his mind as operative forces. He plants them
as spiritual seed, so to speak, in the soil of the mind's life, and
awaits in complete serenity of spirit their effect upon this life of
the mind. He can then observe that, with the repeated employment of
such an exercise, the condition of the mind undergoes a change.
It must be expressly emphasized, however, that what really counts is
the repetition. For the fact in question is not that the
content of the concepts in the ordinary sense brings something
about in the mind after the manner of a process of cognition;
on the contrary, we have to do with an actual process in the life of
the mind itself. In this process, concepts do not play the role of
cognitional elements but that of real forces; and their effect
depends upon having the same forces lay hold in frequent repetition
upon the mind's life. The effect achieved in the mind depends
preeminently upon the requirement that the same force shall
again and again seize upon the experience connected with the concept.
For this reason the greatest results can be attained through
meditations upon the same content which are repeated at definite
intervals through relatively long periods of time. The duration
of such a meditation is, in this connection, of little importance. It
may be very brief, provided only that it is accompanied by absolute
serenity of soul and the complete exclusion from the mind of all
external sense impressions and all ordinary activity of the
intellect. What is essential is the seclusion of the mind's life with
the content indicated. This must be mentioned because it needs to be
clearly understood that undertaking these exercises of the mind need
not disturb anyone in his ordinary life. The time required is
available, as a rule, to everyone. And, if the exercises are rightly
carried out, the change which they bring about in the mind does
not produce the slightest effect upon the constitution of
consciousness necessary for the normal human life. (The fact that
— because of what the human being actually is in his present
status — undesirable excesses and peculiarities sometimes
occur cannot alter in any way one's judgment of the essential nature
of the practice.)

For the discipline of the
mind which has been described, most concepts in human life are
scarcely at all usable. All contents of the mind which relate in
marked degree to objective elements outside of themselves have little
effect if used for the exercises we have characterized. In far
greater measure are mental pictures suitable which can be
designated as emblems, as symbols.

Most fruitful of all are
those which relate in a living way comprehensively to a manifold
content. Let us take as an example, proven by experience to be good,
what Goethe designated as his idea of the “archetypal
plant.” It may be permissible to refer to the fact that, during
a conversation with Schiller, he once drew with a few strokes a
symbolic picture of this “archetypal plant.” Moreover, he
said that one who makes this picture alive in his mind possesses in
it something out of which it would be possible to devise, through
modification in conformity with law, all possible forms capable of
existence. Whatever one may think about the objective cognitional
value of such a “symbolic archetypal plant,” if it
is made to live in the mind in the manner indicated, if one awaits in
serenity its effects upon the mind's life, there comes about
something which can be called a changed constitution of mind.

The mental pictures which
are said by spiritual scientists to be usable in this connection may
at times seem decidedly strange. This feeling of strangeness can be
eliminated if one reflects that such representations must not be
considered for their value as truths in the ordinary sense, but
should be viewed with respect to the manner in which they are
effective as real forces in the mind's life. The spiritual
scientist does not attribute value to the significance of the
pictures which are used for the mental exercises, but to what is
experienced in the mind under their influence.

Here we can give,
naturally, only a few examples of effective symbolic
representations. Let one conceive the being of man in a mental image
in such a way that the lower human nature, related to the animal
organization, shall appear in its relation to man as a spiritual
being, through the symbolic union of an animal shape and the most
highly idealized human form superimposed upon this —
somewhat, let us say, like a centaur. The more pictorially alive the
symbol appears, the more saturated with content, the better it is.
Under the conditions described, this symbol acts in such a way on the
mind that, after the passage of a certain time — of course,
somewhat long — the inner life processes are felt to be
strengthened in themselves, mobile, reciprocally illuminating
one another. An old symbol which may be used with good result is the
so-called staff of Mercury — that is, the mental image of a
straight line around which a spiral curves. Of course, one must
picture this figure as emblematic of a force-system — in such a
way, let us say, that along the straight line there runs one force
system, to which there corresponds another of lower velocity
passing through the spiral. (Concretely expressed, one may conceive
in connection with this figure the growth of the stem of a
plant and the corresponding sprouting of leaves along its length. Or
one may take it as an image of an electro-magnet. Still further,
there can emerge in this way a picture of the development of a human
being, the enhancing capacities being symbolized by the straight
line, the manifold impressions corresponding with the course of the
spiral.)

Mathematical forms may
become especially significant, to the extent that symbols of cosmic
processes can be seen in them. A good example is the so-called
“Cassini curve,” with its three figures — the form
resembling an ellipse, the lemniscate, and that which consists of two
corresponding branches. In such a case the important thing is to
experience the mental image in such a way that certain appropriate
impressions in the mind shall accompany the transition of one
curve form into the other in accordance with mathematical
principles.

Other exercises may then be
added to these. They consist also in symbols, but such as correspond
with representations which may be expressed in words. Let one think,
through the symbol of light, of the wisdom which may be pictured as
living and weaving in the orderly processes of the cosmic phenomena.
Wisdom which expresses itself in sacrificial love may be thought of
as symbolized by warmth which comes about in the presence of light.
One may think of sentences — which, therefore, have only
a symbolic character — fashioned out of such concepts. The mind
can be absorbed in meditating upon such sentences. The result depends
essentially upon the degree of serenity and seclusion of soul
within the symbol to which one attains in the meditation. If success
is achieved, it consists in the fact that the soul feels as if lifted
out of the corporeal organization. It experiences something like a
change in its sense of existence. If we agree that, in normal life,
the feeling of the human being is such that his conscious life,
proceeding from a unity, takes on a specific character in harmony
with the representations which are derived from the percepts brought
by the individual senses, then the result of the exercises is
that the mind feels itself permeated by an experience of itself not
so sharply differentiated in transition from one part of the
experience to another as, for example, color and tone representations
are differentiated within the horizon of the ordinary
consciousness. The mind has the experience that it can withdraw
into a region of inner being which it owes to the success of the
exercises and which was something empty, something which could not be
perceived, before the exercises were undertaken.

Before such an inner
experience is reached, there occur many transitional stages in the
condition of the mind. One of these manifests itself in an attentive
observation — to be acquired through the exercise — of
the moment of awaking out of sleep. It is possible then to feel
clearly how, out of something not hitherto known to one, forces lay
hold systematically upon the structure of the bodily
organization. One feels, as if in a remembered concept, an
after-effect of influences from this something, which have been at
work upon the corporeal organization during sleep. And if the person
has acquired, in addition, the capacity to experience within his
corporeal organization the something here described, he will
perceive clearly the difference between the relationship of this
something to the body in the waking and in the sleeping state. He
cannot then do otherwise than to say that during the waking state
this something is inside the body and during the sleeping state it is
outside. One must not, however, associate ordinary spatial conception
with this “inside” and “outside,” but must
use these terms only to designate the specific experiences of a mind
which has carried out the exercises described.

These exercises are of an
intimate soul-character. They take for each person an individual
form. When the beginning is once made, the individual element
results from a particular use of the soul to be brought about in the
course of the exercises. But what follows with utter necessity is the
positive consciousness of living within a reality independent of the
external corporeal organization and super-sensible in character. For
the sake of simplicity, let us call such a person seeking for
the described soul experiences a “spiritual researcher”
[Geistesforscher]. For such a
spiritual researcher, there exists the definite consciousness —
kept under complete self-possession — that, behind the
bodily organization perceptible to the senses, there is a
super-sensible organization, and that it is possible to
experience oneself within this as the normal consciousness
experiences itself within the physical bodily organization. (The
exercises referred to can be indicated here only in principle. A
detailed presentation may be found in my book, Knowledge of the
Higher Worlds and Its Attainment.)

Through appropriate
continuation of the exercises, the “something” we have
described passes over into a sort of spiritually organized condition.
The consciousness becomes clearly aware that it is in relationship
with a super-sensible world in a cognitional way, in a manner similar
to that in which it is related through the senses to the sense world.
It is quite natural that serious doubt at once arises, regarding the
assertion of such a cognitional relationship of the super-sensible
part of the being of man to the surrounding world. There may be an
inclination to relegate everything which is thus experienced to the
realm of illusion, hallucination, autosuggestion, and the like.
A theoretical refutation of such doubt is, from the very nature of
things, impossible. For the question here cannot be that of a
theoretical exposition regarding the existence of a super-sensible
world, but only that of possible experiences and observations which
are presented to the consciousness in precisely the same way in which
observations are mediated through the external sense organs. For the
corresponding super-sensible world, therefore, no other sort of
recognition can be demanded than that which the human being offers to
the world of colors, tones, etc. Yet consideration must be given to
the fact that, when the exercises are carried out in the right way
— and, most important, with never relaxed self-possession
— the spiritual researcher can discern through immediate
experience the difference between the imagined super-sensible
and that which is actually experienced; just as certainly as in the
sense world once can discern the difference between imagining the
feel of a piece of hot iron and actually touching it. Precisely
concerning the differences among hallucination, illusion, and
super-sensible reality, the spiritual researcher acquires through his
exercises a practice more and more unerring. But it is also natural
that the prudent spiritual researcher must be extremely critical
regarding individual super-sensible observations made by him. He
will never speak otherwise about positive findings of super-sensible
research than with the reservation that one thing or another has been
observed and that the critical caution practiced in connection with
this justifies the assumption that anyone will make the same
observations who, by means of the appropriate exercises, can
establish a relationship with the super-sensible world. Differences
among the pronouncements of individual spiritual researchers
cannot really be viewed in any other light than the different
pronouncements of various travelers who have visited the same region
and who describe it.

In my book, Knowledge of
the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment, that world which, in
the manner described, appears above the horizon of consciousness has
been called — in accordance with the practice of those
who have been occupied as spiritual researchers in the same field
— “the imaginative world.” But one must dissociate
from this expression, used in a purely technical sense, anything
suggesting a world created by mere “fancy.” Imaginative
is intended merely to suggest the qualitative character of the
content of the mind. This mental content resembles in its form the
“imaginations” of ordinary consciousness, except
that an imagination in the physical world is not directly
related to something real, whereas the imaginations of the
spiritual researcher are just as unmistakably to be ascribed to a
supersensibly real entity as the mental picture of a color in the
sense world, for instance, is ascribed to an objectively real
entity.

But the “imaginative
world” and the knowledge of it mark only the first step for the
spiritual researcher, and very little more is to be learned through
it about the super-sensible world than its external side. A further
step is required. This consists in a further deepening of the life of
the soul than that which has been considered in connection with the
first step. Through intense concentration upon the soul life, brought
about by the exercises, the spiritual researcher must render himself
capable of completely eliminating the content of the symbols from his
consciousness. What he then still has to hold firmly within his
consciousness is only the process to which his inner life was
subjected while he was absorbed in the symbols. The content of the
symbols pictured must be cast out in a sort of real abstraction and
only the form of the experience in connection with the symbols
must remain in the consciousness. The unreal symbolic character of
the forming of mental images — which was significant only
for a transitional stage of the soul's development — is thereby
eliminated, and the consciousness uses as the object of its
meditation the inner weaving of the mind's content. What can be
described of such a process actually compares with the real
experience of the mind as a feeble shadow compares with the object
which casts the shadow. What appears simple in the description
derives its very significant effect from the psychic energy which is
exerted.

The living and moving
within the content of the soul, thus rendered possible, can be called
a real beholding of oneself. The inner being of man thus learns to
know itself not merely through reflecting about itself as the bearer
of the sense impressions and the elaborator of these sense
impressions through thinking; on the contrary, it learns to
know itself as it is, without relationship to a content coming from
the senses; it experiences itself in itself, as super-sensible
reality. This experience is not like that of the ego when in ordinary
self-observation, attention is withdrawn from the things cognized in
the environment and is directed back to the cognizing self. In this
case, the content of consciousness shrinks more and more down
to the point of the “ego.” Such is not the case in the
real beholding of the self by the spiritual researcher. In this, the
soul content becomes continuously richer in the course of the
exercises. It consists in one's living within law-conforming
interrelationships; and the self does not feel, as in the case of the
laws of nature, which are abstracted from the phenomena of the
external world, that it is outside the web of laws; but, on the
contrary, it is aware of itself as within this web; it
experiences itself as one with these laws.

The danger which may come
about at this stage of the exercises lies in the fact that the person
concerned may believe too early — because of deficiency in true
self-possession — that he has arrived at the right
result, and may then feel the mere after-effects of the symbolic
inner pictures to be an inner life. Such an inner life is obviously
valueless, and must not be mistaken for the inner life which appears
at the right moment, making itself known to true circumspection
through the fact that, although it manifests complete reality, yet it
resembles no reality hitherto known.

To an inner life thus
attained, there is now the possibility of a super-sensible knowledge
characterized by a higher degree of certitude than that of mere
imaginative cognition. At this point in the soul's development, the
following manifestation occurs. The inner experience gradually
becomes filled with a content which enters the mind from without in a
manner similar to that in which the content of sense perception
enters through the senses from the outer world. Only, the filling of
the mind with the super-sensible content consists in an actual living
within this content. If one wishes to employ a comparison with a fact
taken from ordinary life, it may be said that the entering of the ego
into union with a spiritual content is now experienced as one
experiences the entering of the ego into union with a mental picture
retained in memory. Yet there is the distinction that the content of
that with which one enters into union cannot be compared

in any respect with
something previously experienced and that it cannot be related to
something past but only to something present. Knowledge of this
character may well be called knowledge “through
inspiration,” provided nothing except what has been described
is associated in thought with this term. I have used the expression
thus as a technical term in my book, Knowledge of the Higher
Worlds and Its Attainment.

In connection with this
“knowledge through inspiration,” a new experience
now appears. That is, the manner in which one becomes aware of the
content of the mind is entirely subjective. At first, this content
does not manifest itself as objective. One knows it as something
experienced; but one does not feel that one confronts it. This comes
about only after one has through soul-energy condensed it, in a
sense, within itself. Only thus does it become something which can be
looked at objectively. But, in this process of the psyche, one
becomes aware that, between the physical bodily organization and that
something which has been separated from this by the exercises,
there is still another entity. If one desires names for these things,
one may employ those which have become customary in so-called
theosophy — provided one does not connect with these
names all sorts of fantastic associations, but designates by
them solely what has been described. That “something” in
which the self lives as in an entity free from the bodily
organization is called the astral body; and that which is discovered
between this astral body and the physical organism is called the
etheric body. (One is, of course, not to connect this in thought with
the “ether” of modern physics.)

Now, it is from the etheric
body that the forces come, through which the self is enabled to make
an objective perception of the subjective content of inspired
knowledge. By what right, it may be asked with good reason, does the
spiritual researcher come to the standpoint of ascribing this
perception to a super-sensible world instead of considering it a mere
creation of his own self? He would have no right to do this if the
etheric body, which he experiences in connection with his psychic
process, did not in its inner conformity to law compel him to do so
with objective necessity. But such is the case, for the etheric body
is experienced as a confluence of the all-encompassing complex
of laws of the macrocosm. The important point is not how much
of this complex of laws becomes the actual content of the spiritual
researcher's consciousness. The peculiar fact is that direct
cognition sees clearly that the etheric body is nothing else than a
compacted image reflecting in itself the cosmic web of laws.
Knowledge of the etheric body by the spiritual researcher does not at
first extend to showing what content from the sum total of the
universal cosmic web of laws is reflected by this formation, but to
showing what this content is.

Other justifiable doubts
which the ordinary consciousness must raise against spiritual
research, together with much besides, are the following. One may take
note of the findings of this research (as they appear in contemporary
literature) and may say: “Actually, what you there
describe as the content of super-sensible knowledge proves upon closer
scrutiny to be nothing more, after all, than combinations of ordinary
conceptions taken from the sense world.” And, in fact, this is
what is said. (Likewise, the descriptions of the higher worlds which
I myself felt justified in giving in the volumes, Theosophy
and Occult Science,. an Outline, are found to be, so it seems,
nothing but combinations of conceptions taken from the sense
world — as, for instance, when the evolution of the earth
through combinations of entities of warmth, light, etc., is
described.)

Against this view, however,
the following must be said. When the spiritual researcher wishes to
give expression to his experiences, he is compelled to employ the
means available to sense-conceptions for expressing what is
experienced in a super-sensible sphere. His experience is not to be
conceived, then, as if it were like his means of expression,
but with the realization that he uses this means only like the words
of a language which he requires. One must seek for the content of his
experience, not in the means of expression — that is, not in
the illustrative representations — but in the manner in which
he uses these instruments of expression. The difference between his
presentation and a fantastic combining of sensible representations
lies in the fact that fantastic combining arises out of a subjective
arbitrariness, whereas the presentation of the spiritual researcher
rests upon a conscious familiarity with the super-sensible complex of
laws, acquired through practice. Here, however, the reason is also to
be found why the presentations of the spiritual researcher may
so easily be misunderstood. That is, the manner in which he speaks is
more important than what he says. In the how is reflected his
super-sensible experience. If the objection is raised that, in this
case, what the spiritual researcher says has no direct relationship
with the ordinary world, it must be emphasized in reply that the
manner of his presentation does, in fact, meet the practical
requirements for an explanation of the sense world drawn from a
super-sensible sphere, and that the understanding of the world
process perceptible to the senses is aided by real attention to the
findings of the spiritual researcher.

Another objection may be
raised. It may be asked what the assertions of the spiritual
researcher have to do with the content of ordinary consciousness,
since this consciousness, it may be said, cannot subject them to
testing. Precisely this latter statement is, in principle, untrue.
For research in the super-sensible world, for discovering its facts,
that condition of mind is necessary which can be acquired only by
means of the exercises described. But this does not apply to the
testing. For this purpose, when the spiritual researcher has
communicated his findings, ordinary unprejudiced logic is sufficient.
This will always be able to determine in principle that, if what the
spiritual researcher says is true, the course of the world and of
life as they proceed before the senses becomes understandable. The
opinion which may be formed at first concerning the experiences of
the spiritual researcher is not the important point. These may be
viewed as hypotheses, regulative principles (in the sense of
Kantian philosophy). But if they are simply applied to the
sense world, it will be seen that the sense world confirms in the
course of its events everything which is asserted by the spiritual
researcher. (Naturally, this is valid only in principle; it is
obvious that, in details, the assertions of so-called spiritual
researchers may contain the gravest errors.)

Another experience of the
spiritual researcher can come about only provided the exercises are
carried still further. This continuation must consist in the fact
that the spiritual researcher, after having attained to beholding the
self, shall be able by energetic power of will to suppress this
experience. He must be able to free the mind from everything
that has been achieved through the continued after-effects of his
exercises resting upon the outer sense world. The symbol-images are
combined out of sense-images. The living and moving of the self
within itself in connection with achieved inspired knowledge is, to
be sure, free from the content of the symbols, yet it is a result of
the exercises which have been carried out under their influence. Even
though the inspired knowledge thus brings about a direct
relationship of the self to the super-sensible world, the clear
beholding of the relationship can be carried still further. This
results from the energetic suppression of the self-view which has
been attained. After this suppression, the self may, as one
possibility, be confronted by a void. In this case the exercises must
be continued. As a second possibility, the self may find that it is
more immediately in the presence of the super-sensible world in its
real being than it had been in connection with inspired
knowledge. In the latter experience, there appears only the
relationship of a super-sensible world to the self; in the case of the
kind of knowledge we are now describing the self is completely
eliminated. If one wishes an expression adapted to ordinary
consciousness for this condition of mind, it may be said that
consciousness now experiences itself as the stage upon which a
super-sensible content, consisting of real being, is not merely
perceived but perceives itself. (In the volume, Knowledge of the
Higher Worlds and Its Attainment, I have called this kind of
knowledge “intuitive knowledge,” but in connection
with this expression the ordinary term intuition must be
disregarded — which is used to designate every direct
experience of a content of consciousness through feeling.)

Through intuitive
knowledge, the whole relationship in which the human being as
“soul” finds himself with respect to his bodily
organization is altered for the direct observation of the inner
being of the soul. Before the faculty of spiritual vision, the
etheric body appears, in a sense, as a super-sensible organism
differentiated within itself. And one recognizes its differentiated
members as adapted in a definite way to the members of the
physical bodily organization. The etheric body is experienced as the
primary entity and the physical body as its copy, as something
secondary. The horizon of consciousness appears to be determined
through the law-conforming activity of the etheric body. The
coordination of the phenomena within this horizon results from
the activity of the differentiated members of the etheric body
striving towards a unity. The etheric body rests upon an
all-embracing cosmic web of laws; basic in the unification of its
action is the tendency to relate itself to something as a center. And
the image of this uniting tendency is the physical body. Thus the
latter proves to be an expression of the World-Ego, as the etheric
body is an expression of the macrocosmic web of laws.

What is here set forth
becomes clearer if we refer to a special fact of the inner life of
the soul. This shall be done with reference to memory. As a result of
the freeing of the self from the bodily organization, the spiritual
researcher experiences the act of recollecting differently from one
with ordinary consciousness. For him, recollecting, which is
otherwise a more-or-less undifferentiated process, is separated
into partial factors. At first, he senses the attraction toward an
experience which is to be remembered, like a drawing of the attention
in a certain direction. The experience is thus really analogous
to the spatial directing of one's look toward a distant object, which
one has first seen, then turns away from, and then turns toward
again. The essential aspect of this is that the experience pressing
toward remembrance is sensed as something which has stopped far away
within the temporal horizon, and which does not merely have to be
drawn up from the depths below in the soul's life. This turning in
the direction of the experience pressing toward remembrance is at
first a merely subjective process. When the remembrance now actually
occurs, the spiritual researcher feels that it is the resistance of
the physical body which works like a reflecting surface and
raises the experience into the objective world of representations.
Thus the spiritual researcher feels, in connection with the process
of remembering, an occurrence which (subjectively perceptible)
takes place within the etheric body and which becomes his remembrance
through its reflection by the physical body. The first factor in
recollecting would give merely disconnected experiences of the
self. Through the fact that every remembrance is reflected by being
impressed upon the life of the physical body, it becomes a part of
the ego-experiences.

From all that has been said
it is clear that the spiritual researcher comes to the point in his
inner experience where he recognizes that the human being perceptible
to the senses is the manifestation of a human being who is
super-sensible. He seeks for a consciousness of this super-sensible
human being, not by way of inference and speculation based upon the
world that is directly given, but, on the contrary, by so
transforming his own condition of mind that this ascends from the
perceiving of the sense-perceptible to real participation in
the super-sensible. He arrives in this way at the recognition of a
content of soul which proves to be richer, more filled with
substance, than that of ordinary consciousness. What this road
then leads to further can only be suggested here, of course,
since a thorough exposition would require a comprehensive treatise.
The inner being of the soul becomes for the spiritual researcher the
producer, the builder, of that which constitutes the single human
life in the physical world. And this producer manifests in itself
that it has — interwoven into its life as realities — the
forces, not only of the one life, but of many lives. That which may
be considered as evidence of reincarnation, of repeated earthly
lives, becomes a matter of actual observation. For what one learns of
the inner core of the human life reveals, one might say, the
telescoping together of interrelated human personalities. And these
personalities can be sensed only in the relationship of the preceding
and the succeeding. For one which follows is always manifested as the
result of another. There is, moreover, in the relationship of one
personality to another no element of continuity; rather, there
is such a relationship as manifests itself in successive earthly
lives separated by intervening periods of purely spiritual existence.
To the observation of the soul's inner being, the periods during
which the core of the human being was embodied in a physical
corporeal organization are differentiated from those of the
super-sensible existence through the fact that, in the former, the
experience of the content of the mind appears as if projected against
the background of the physical life; while, in the latter, it appears
as merged in a super-sensible element which extends into the
indefinite. It has not been the intention to present here anything
more concerning so-called reincarnation than a sort of view of a
perspective which is opened by the preceding reflections.

Anyone who admits the
possibility that the human self may be able to become familiar with
the core of being which is supersensibly visible will also no longer
consider it unreasonable to suppose that, after further insight into
this core of being, its content is revealed as differentiated, and
that this differentiation provides the spiritual view of a
succession of forms of existence extending back into the past.
The fact that these forms of existence may bear their own
time-indications may be seen to be intelligible through the analogy
with ordinary memory. An experience appearing in memory bears in its
content also its own time-indication. But the real “resurvey in
memory” of past forms of existence, supported by rigid
self-supervision, is still very remote, of course, from the training
of the spiritual researcher which has thus far been described, and
great difficulties for the inner soul life tower up on the path
before this can be attained in an incontestable form. Nevertheless,
this lies on the direct continuation of the path to knowledge which
has been described. It has been my desire at first to register here,
so to speak, facts of experience in the inner soul-observation. It is
for this reason that I have described reincarnation only as one such
fact, but this fact can be established also on a theoretical basis.
This I have done in the chapter entitled “Karma and
Reincarnation” in the book, Theosophy. I undertook there
to show that certain findings of modem natural science, if thought
out to their conclusion, lead to the assumption of the ideas of
reincarnation of the human being.

Regarding the total nature
of the human being, we must conclude from what has been said that his
essential nature becomes understandable when viewed as the result of
the interaction of the four members: 1) the physical bodily
organization; 2) the etheric body; 3) the astral body; 4) the ego
(the “I”), which develops in the last-named member and
comes to manifestation through the relationship between the
central core of man's being and the physical organization. It is not
possible to deal with the further articulation of these four
life-manifestations of the total human being within the limits of one
lecture. Here the intention has been to show only the basis of
spiritual research. Further details I have sought to provide:
1) as to the method, in the volume, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds
and its Attainment; and, 2) as to the system, in
Theosophy and Occult Science, an Outline.

The
Experiences of the Spiritual Researcher
and the Theory of Knowledge

The exposition which has
been presented will render it clear that anthroposophy, rightly
understood, rests upon the foundation of a way of developing the
human soul which is to be rigidly systematized in its character, and
that it would be erroneous to suppose that there exists in the
condition of mind of the spiritual researcher anything of the
nature of what is ordinarily called at present enthusiasm, ecstasy,
rapture, vision, and the like. Misunderstandings arise which may be
presented in opposition to anthroposophy precisely through the
confusion between the condition of mind here characterized and these
other conditions. First, the belief is created through this confusion
that there exists in the mind of the spiritual researcher a state of
rapture, of being transported beyond self-possession in one's
consciousness, a sort of striving after immediate instinctive vision.
But the truth is just the opposite. The condition of mind of the
spiritual researcher is even further removed than is ordinary
consciousness from what is ordinarily called ecstasy, vision, from
every sort of ordinary seer-ship. Even such states of mind as those
to which Shaftesbury refers are nebulous inner worlds in comparison
with what is striven for by means of the exercises of the genuine
spiritual researcher. Shaftesbury finds that by means of the
“cold intellect,” without the rapture of the feeling
nature, no path can be discovered leading to deeper forms of
knowledge. True spiritual research carries with it the whole inner
mental apparatus of logic and self-conscious circumspection
when it seeks to transfer consciousness from the sensible to the
super-sensible sphere. It cannot be accused, therefore, of
disregarding the rational element of knowledge. It can,
however, elaborate its contents in concepts through thinking
after perception, for the reason that, in passing out of the sense
world, it always carries with it the rational element and always
retains it, like a skeleton of the super-sensible experience, as
an integrating factor of all super-sensible perception.

Naturally, it is impossible
here to show the relationship of spiritual research to the various
contemporary trends in theories of knowledge. The effort will be made
by means of a few rather sketchy observations, therefore, to point
out that particular conception of the theory of knowledge and its
relationship to spiritual research which must experience the greatest
difficulties in relation to spiritual research. It is, perhaps, not
immodest to call attention to the fact that a complete basis for
discrimination between philosophy and anthroposophy can be obtained
from my two publications, Truth and Science and The
Philosophy of Freedom.

To the epistemology of our
time it has become increasingly axiomatic to maintain that
there are given in the content of our consciousness only
pictures, or even only “tokens” (Helmholtz) of the
transcendent-real. It will be needless to explain here how critical
philosophy and physiology (“specific
sense-energies,” views of Johannes Mueller and his adherents)
have worked together to make of such a conception an apparently
irrefutable idea. Naive Realism, which views the phenomena within the
horizon of consciousness as something more than subjective
representations of something objective, was considered in the
philosophical development of the nineteenth century to have
been invalidated for all time. But from that which lies at the
foundation of this conception, there follows almost as a matter
of course the rejection of the anthroposophical point of view. From
the critical point of view, the anthroposophical viewpoint can be
considered only as an impossible leap over the limits of knowledge
inherent in the nature of our consciousness. If we may reduce
to a simple formula an immeasurably great and brilliant
expression of the critical theory of knowledge, it may be said that
the critical philosopher sees in the facts within the horizon of
consciousness representations, pictures, or tokens, and holds
that a possible relationship to a transcendental external can
be found only within the thinking consciousness. He holds that
consciousness, of course, cannot leap beyond itself, cannot get
outside itself, in order to plunge into a transcendental entity. Such
a conception, in fact, has within it something that seems
self-evident, and yet it rests upon a presupposition which one need
only see into in order to refute it. It seems almost paradoxical when
one brings against the subjective idealism expressed in the
conception just cited the charge of a veiled materialism. And yet one
cannot do otherwise. Permit me to render clear by a comparison what
can be said here. Let a name be impressed in wax with a seal. The
name, with everything pertaining to it, has been transferred by the
seal into the wax. What cannot pass across from the seal into the wax
is the metal of the seal. For the wax, substitute the soul life of
the human being and for the seal substitute the transcendental.
It then becomes obvious at once that one cannot declare it impossible
for the transcendental to pass over into the impression unless one
conceives the objective content of the transcendental as not
spiritual, since this passing over of a spiritual content could be
conceived in analogy with the complete reception of the name into the
wax. To serve the requirement of Critical Idealism, the
assumption would have to be made that the content of the
transcendental is to be conceived in analogy with the metal of
the seal. But this cannot be done otherwise than by making the veiled
materialistic assumption that the transcendental must be received
into the impression in the form of a materially conceived
flowing-across. In the event that the transcendental is spiritual, it
is entirely possible that the impression could take this up.

A further displacement in
the simple facts of consciousness is caused by Critical
Idealism through the fact that it leaves out of account the question
of the factual relationship existing between the cognitional content
and the ego. If one assumes a priori that the ego, together
with the content of laws of the world reduced to the form of ideas
and concepts, is outside the transcendental, it will be simply
self-evident that this ego cannot leap beyond itself — that is,
that it must always remain outside the transcendental. But this
presupposition cannot be sustained in the face of an unbiased
observation of the facts of consciousness. For the sake of
simplicity, we shall here refer to the content of the cosmic web of
law in so far as this can be expressed in mathematical concepts and
formulae. The inner conformity to law in the relationships of
mathematical forms is acquired within consciousness and is then
applied to empirical factual situations. Now, no distinction
can be discovered between what exists in consciousness as a
mathematical concept when, on the one hand, this consciousness
relates its own content to an empirical factual situation, and when,
on the other, it visualizes this mathematical concept within
itself in pure abstract mathematical thinking. But this signifies
nothing else than that the ego, with its mathematical representation,
is not outside the transcendental mathematical law-conformity
of things but inside this. Therefore, one will arrive at a better
conception of the ego from the viewpoint of the theory of knowledge,
not by conceiving the ego as inside the bodily organization and
receiving impressions “from without,” but by conceiving
the ego as being itself within the law-conformity of things, and
viewing the bodily organization as only a sort of mirror which
reflects back to the ego through the organic bodily activity
the living and moving of the ego outside the body in the
transcendental. If, as regards mathematical thinking, one has
familiarized oneself with the thought that the ego is not in the body
but outside it, and that the bodily activity represents only the
living mirror, from which the life of the ego in the transcendental
is reflected, one can then find this thought epistemologically
comprehensible concerning everything which appears within the
horizon of consciousness.

One could then no longer
say that the ego would have to leap beyond itself if it desired to
enter the transcendental; but one would have to see that the ordinary
empirical content of consciousness is related to that which is
truly experienced in the inner life of man's core of being as
the mirrored image is related to the real being of the person who is
viewing himself in the mirror.

Through such a manner of
conceiving in relation to the theory of knowledge, conflict could be
decisively eliminated between natural science, with its inclination
toward materialism, and a spiritual research, which presupposes
the spiritual. For a right of way should be established for
natural scientific research, in that it could investigate the laws of
the bodily organization uninfluenced by interference from a
spiritual manner of thinking. If one wishes to know according
to what laws the reflected image comes into existence, one must give
attention to the laws of the mirror. This determines how the
beholder is reflected; it occurs in different ways depending on
whether one has a plane, concave, or convex mirror. But the being of
the person who is reflected is outside the mirror. One could thus see
in the laws to be discovered through natural scientific research the
reasons for the form of the empirical consciousness, and with these
laws nothing should be mixed of what spiritual science has to say
about the inner life of man's core of being. Within natural
scientific research one will always rightly oppose the interference
of purely spiritual points of view. It is natural that, in the area
of this research, there is more sympathy with explanations which are
given in a mechanistic way than with spiritual laws. A conception
such as the following must be congenial to one who is at home in
clear natural scientific conceptions: “The fact of
consciousness brought about by the stimulation of brain cells does
not belong in a class essentially different from that of gravity
connected with matter” (Moriz Benedikt).

In any case, such an
explanation gives with exact methodology that which is conceivable
for natural science. It is scientifically tenable, whereas the
hypotheses of a direct control of the organic processes by psychic
influences are scientifically untenable. But the idea previously
given, fundamental from the point of view of the theory of
knowledge, can see in the whole range of what can be established by
natural science only arrangements which serve to reflect the real
core of man's being. This core of being, however, is not to be
located in the interior of the physical organization, but in the
transcendental. Spiritual research would then be conceived as
the way by which one attains knowledge of the real nature of that
which is reflected. Obviously, the common basis of the laws of the
physical organism and those of the super-sensible would lie behind the
antithesis, being and mirror. This, however, is
certainly no disadvantage for the practice of the scientific
method of approach from both directions. With the maintenance
of the antithesis described, this method would, so to speak, flow in
two currents, each reciprocally illuminating and clarifying the
other. For it must be maintained that, in the physical organization,
we are not dealing with a reflecting apparatus, in the absolute
sense, independent of the super-sensible. The reflecting
apparatus must, after all, be considered as the product of the
super-sensible being who is mirrored in it. The relative reciprocal
independence of the one and the other method of approach mentioned
above must be supplemented by a third method coming to meet them,
which enters into the depths of the problem and which is capable of
beholding the synthesis of the sensible and the super-sensible. The
confluence of the two currents may be conceived as given
through a possible further development of the life of the mind up to
the intuitive cognition already described. Only within this cognition
is that confluence superseded.

It may thus be asserted
that epistemologically unbiased considerations open the way for
rightly understood anthroposophy. For these lead to the
conclusion that it is a theoretically understandable possibility that
the core of man's being may have an existence free of the physical
organization, and that the opinion of the ordinary
consciousness — that the ego is to be considered a being
absolutely within the body — is to be adjudged an inevitable
illusion of the immediate life of the mind. The ego —
with the whole of man's core of being — can be viewed as an
entity which experiences its relationship to the objective world
within that world itself, and receives its experiences as reflections
in the form of impressions from the bodily organization. The
separation of man's core of being from the bodily organization must,
naturally, not be conceived spatially, but must be viewed as a
relatively dynamic state of release. An apparent contradiction
is then also resolved which might be discovered between what is
here said and what has previously been said regarding the nature of
sleep. In the waking state the human core of being is so fitted into
the physical organization that it is reflected in this through the
dynamic relationship to it; in the state of sleep the reflecting
ceases. Since the ordinary consciousness, in the sense of the
epistemological considerations here presented, is rendered
possible only through the reflection (through the reflected
representations), it ceases, therefore, during the state of sleep.
The condition of mind of the spiritual researcher can be understood
as one in which the illusion of the ordinary consciousness is
overcome, and which gains a starting point in the life of soul from
which it actually experiences the human core of being in free release
from the bodily organization. All else which is then achieved through
exercises is only a deeper delving into the transcendental, in
which the ego of ordinary consciousness really exists although it is
not aware of itself as within the transcendental.

Spiritual research is thus
proved to be epistemologically conceivable. That it is conceivable
will be admitted, naturally, only by one who can accept the view that
the so-called critical theory of knowledge will be able to maintain
its dogma of the impossibility of leaping over consciousness only so
long as it fails to see through the illusion that the human core of
being is enclosed within the bodily organization and receives
impressions through the senses. I am aware that I have given only
indications in outline in my epistemological exposition. Yet it may
be possible to recognize from these indications that they are
not isolated notions but grow out of a developed fundamental
epistemological conception.